#anti-damon-salvatore

[queenbonniebennett]

Nothing but facts. Go argue with a wall

[qvnthesia]

THANK YOU

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH 👏👏

Stefan “They are people, Damon. She’s not a puppet. She doesn’t exist for your amusement for you to feed on whenever you want”

Damon “Sure she does. They all do. They’re whatever i want them to be. They’re mine for the taking. I’ll do with your little cheerleader whatever i want to do”

I don’t know why people fangirl over Damon since “hello brother”

[dragonlands]

Elena Gilbert stops being boring the moment you stop viewing tvd as romance and start viewing it as a gothic horror of an underage girl groomed into an incestous love triangle between two serial killing brothers.

Her parents are dead and she only finds comfort in graveyards, her thoughts are filled with death. Then she meets these guys who CANNOT DIE and she even canonically says that's what drew her to Stefan (and let's be honest it's exactly the same with Damon). These older men want to protect her and they desire her obsessively and they form a weird, weird little family dynamic where Elena is constantly treated like a child. Elena latches onto these guys who don't only fill the role of boyfriends but also the role of parents. How she acceps the role as daughter/lover/victim of the Salvatore brothers could be fascinating if the narrative acknowledged it for what it is - horror.

[chloesreality]

me watching an edit of Stefan and Elena was saying “this isn’t you” and then Stef said “STOP SAYING THAT”

then I went to the comments 😭

this cracked me up so hard

it’s giving “Were you silent or were you silenced”

actually bfrr though, have we actually watched the same show? literally stop it’s too funny now 🤭

[sxnshxnxxnddxxsxxs]

sometimes i just think about bonnie bennett

and how she was never intended to be black. her equivalent character in the vampire diaries novels is white and the only reason she’s black is that the producers of tvd told julie plec that she couldn’t have an all white cast. yet bonnie bennett is the embodiment of the magical negro trope, she’s probably one of the best examples of it in 21st century television. and it just makes me wonder what bonnie bennett would be like if she got the storyline julie plec would have given her had she been white. both joseph morgan and ian somerhalder argued for bonnie to get a romance plot with their characters. i personally would have liked a subplot of kol teaching bonnie magic in tvd season 3 and 4 perhaps with a romantic plot within it. but the symbolism of kol who was taught magic by ayana being the first person who teach bonnie since her grams died and teaching her all these ancient bennett spells from his childhood is something that i think just made so much sense for both their characters.

sometimes i just think about bonnie bennett and who she would be without julie plec’s racism.

oh and this is everyone’s reminder that stefan and damon had nothing to do with the confederacy in the vampire diaries novels they were just 500 year old dudes from italy. the whole mystic falls confederacy lore is entirely of julie plec’s own making.

[misspermitted]

Random Vampire Diaries discourse but I’ve been thinking about Bonnie and Kai and why they interest me so much. Because usually TVD’s sexually charged “he’s a terrible person but he’s infatuated with you” thing doesn’t interest me. Like I enjoy watching Klaroline and Delena as a guilty pleasure, but it doesn’t interest me. He’s just obsessed with her, and she eventually brings out the good in him, yada yada the messed up toxic guy brings out her dark side yada yada, she realises her power and so on. And I just don’t really care. I just watch it, and then I move on. I don’t linger on it for days and think about the characters.

But this random Bonnie and Kai thing that went on for 10 episodes, for some reason every so often I just think about them for days on end. And I reckon it’s because what the actors were setting up with them was really unique and not that trope. But then, since TVD is really badly written, after the prison arc they tried to turn it into the “guy is infatuated and redeems for her” and Chris Wood (who plays Kai) legitimately refuses to act that (which, like, good on him). So then they dropped the Bonnie/Kai storyline and just made him a villain.

But what were they then? At least originally? Because every time I get obsessed with these characters I go into fanon and it ruins my obsession, because it’s just that whole “evil guy is infatuated” thing all over again and it just doesn’t feel like them.

So let’s go through my reading of the Bonnie/Kai prison arc:

For me, what originally caught my attention about these two was that I thought Bonnie was the actually obsessed one. At least at first.

How Bonnie acts during their first scenes together

Bonnie spends seasons without her magic and this random guy shows up and gets under her skin so much she actually unlocks it? What? And the reason given is that she needed to save Damon but the spirits had straight up taken her magic. Her friends have been in life and death situations for ages and she couldn’t do anything about it to the point where she takes on dark magic. Clearly it is not just a desire to save her friends that unlocks it. And her becoming anchor does not change the fact that it had been confiscated. Forever. Who is this random guy that got her to unlock it by just taunting her?

And then she spends the whole first few conversations legitimately flirting back with this guy. Who just tried to kill her friend. When Bonnie doesn’t flirt with people. Like we have never seen Bonnie (until now, no bonenzo erasure) actually be interested in any villain ever. She typically just glares at them.

And that’s something that gets me about their dynamic. Bonnie acts so different around Kai than she does with anyone else. When Bonnie has dealt with evil sociopaths before. This guy is not new.

Bonnie tries to kill Kai (the first time)

What does Bonnie do when dealing with evil vampires or evil warlocks? Usually shes the one who is the voice of reason. With the plan. Who comes in at the end and saves everyone. Not Kai. She straight up throws an axe at him. On a hunch. When he actually hasn’t done anything that bad.

Bonnie doesn’t kill people a lot before this point. Unless she thinks it’s necessary. And they have to have done something really bad and she actually seems upset afterwards. But not Kai. Literally all he does is threaten them a little, offer to be friends, and kill his family 20 years before. Which is incredibly low stakes given the other stuff people do in TVD. Why does he get under her skin so much?

It’s so weird to me that she’s so against letting him out. I mean Bonnie is stubborn and has a strong sense of justice, but she also does bad stuff for the greater good. It’s far more like her to let him out for the greater good of getting them both out, and then stop him. But she’s not actually being reasonable.

Even Damon calls her on it. How she’s acting more impulsive and negative than he is. Just because Kai exists. It’s a level of caring and irritation that we don’t actually see from Bonnie a lot, who is usually cool and collected and strong.

How Kai acts in most of the prison world arc together

Kai meanwhile acts towards her how he later acts towards Elena. Flirty and off putting. Though he does later seem to realise that Bonnie is legitimately impressive and useful in a way that he decides Elena isn’t (which is just factually true). But Kai (in the first half) is a sociopath who uses people for his own benefit, and that is exactly how he treats Bonnie.

Especially later, after Damon is gone, he tries to play the sympathy card so many times and the “you’re different” tactic, but it’s all a lie and Bonnie is aware of it. And this it the other thing that I love about their dynamic, Bonnie is clearly very diverted and unsettled by this guy, but she is not an idiot. She has watched Caroline and Elena both fall for bad boys saying that they'll "change" for them. And she has spent the whole time saying they're being incredibly stupid. And she doesn’t turn from that awareness.

In my opinion, that’s the first thing that makes Kai act differently around her, the realisation that she is not gonna fall for any of that. He waits four months to manipulate them, and then suddenly is really impatient about when to do the spell? Why? And I think it’s because he realises that he’s not gonna get her to agree for long. She’s too observant. She figured out who he was so goddamn quickly. And she’s only gonna be scared for so long.

Kai takes her to his house

It’s so weird for Kai to take her to his house. He knew how to get out. He could’ve just left her. And it would’ve been less risky, since it’s clear at this point that he treats her as a danger.

Like he could just kill her. It would be safer to kill her. Bur he doesn’t. He brings her to his house. To gloat? He never seems interested in doing that before now. He’s cool for them to view him as irritating or a child or something to be scared of, depends on what’s useful. You don’t even see him gloat to Jo.

And this actually makes sense. Kai doesn’t care. Why would he need to gloat. He has a goal and he just needs to achieve it. Once he achieves it his revenge will be done and he will have won. He doesn’t have to villain monologue. He won. That’s satisfying enough.

In my opinion this is where Kai stops acting normal towards Bonnie. Like she’s just something to use for his goal. Or, rather, his goal changes.

Kai says he brings Bonnie to his house because he’s never had someone to share it with before. I feel like he might actually be telling the truth here, because it’s the only thing that makes sense.

Kai tries to manipulate Bonnie the day before wearing all his possible masks. An abomination making her scared and powerless. A misunderstood monster playing on sympathy, flattering her and saying he wants to be like her. And he believes it works. But it doesn’t. Bonnie not only outsmarts him, she outsmarts him and mocks the masks he wore. She take his manipulative bear that is supposed to be his attempts at fake kindness, and literally sends it away. He spends the whole first half of the day repeatedly trying to scare her and make her feel powerless, and her counter plan is all about how she is not powerless at all. He’s not in control. He needs her magic. And that’s hers. She controls it. And now it’s not here anymore. You’re welcome 😇

And while this is incredibly iconic of Bonnie, and irritating for him, it also means Bonnie sees past all those masks. For a guy who’s clearly used to pretending. For a guy who was always seen as an abomination even when he wasn’t. It clearly interests him that she actually just doesn’t see him as a monster, at least in any superficial way that he can use. Bonnie Bennet knew him well enough to know that he was lying.

So Kai brings Bonnie to the place where all of his memories are. Where he grew up. Where he killed his family and the blood is still there. And it’s clearly not to gain her trust through being misunderstood (the blood is still there, and he shows absolutely no attempt at remorse). And he is legitimately cordial and doesn’t restrain her, so he’s not purposefully trying to make her powerless or scared. So what’s his angle?

This is the thing, where Kai acts different as well. He shows resentment about his upbringing when he mentions it, not sadness or any pity based emotions. He babbles and cooks because he (as we learn) likes cooking. Bonnie later interprets it as him trying to gain her trust just to betray her out of sadism, but 1. Kai isn’t actually a sadist. Kai likes control, and can get angry and violent. He doesn’t care if he’s stabbing someone or not. We see it as he gets out, violence and manipulation is a means to an end. Always. And there is no end aside from revenge for him to try to betray Bonnie. Especially because Bonnie has been very clear that she will not trust him.

Then there’s the fact that he is not, as we’ve addressed, actually doing anything that would lead to trust. None of the previous masks. He’s actually being very open and generally having dinner with a psycho in the house covered in blood stains from when he killed children is not a trust building exercise. (Honestly, kind of weird that she thinks it was supposed to be. What, were you actually warming up to him during that dinner? A little suspicious Bonnie.)

But if, instead, Kai is doing all this to share himself with Bonnie. To be seen. He’s so irritated when she doesn’t understand: “Can’t you see I’m trying to apologise?” And then she very clearly states that she is not interested in spending any time with him, seeing anything, sharing anything, aside from the last dinner.

And we wonder why he puts it off, if his entire plan is just to stab her, leave, and gloat with a pager. Why does he drag the dinner longer than necessary? He’s about to leave, he’s been impatient to leave this entire time, but he actually puts it off. There is no reason to. He’s about to be around so many people to communicate with, but he wants to spend as much time with Bonnie as possible. Why??

And if the ascendant can only be used in the Mystic Falls tunnels, and he flies all the way to Portland, and it’s getting dark when he grabs the knife in the tree stump, then he puts off his return for an entire day. Just to eat spaghetti. Really slowly.

It only makes sense if he’s there specifically because his goal is to hang out with her. He wants to share. She pretty much acknowledges this and says she will never, ever care or like him. Stop trying to share with her. Leave her alone. Which, if he’s this excited about being seen, would be infuriating for him.

How Bonnie acts after he leaves

What really got me about the whole arc, though, is how Bonnie talks about what happens. Because that really shows how weird these two are.

Bonnie is furious with Kai and when she’s explaining what she went through to Damon, and doesn’t emphasise the stabbing or the manipulation as the worst part, but that Kai left her. All alone. He abandoned her.

Which is crazy, because that is so intimate for a complaint. But that is what she holds on to. Damon didn’t abandon her, even though he did. Her friends didn’t abandon her, even though they did. This random sociopathic guy abandoned her. Bonnie has the opposite of an abandonment complex, she is constantly overlooked and left and never gets mad about it, except this one time. With Kai. Who there shouldn’t have even been expectations about.

But it’s clear they were both aware there was. Despite Kai promising to leave her alone after a last dinner, his message isn’t “have fun” or something like that, it’s “I lied.” But he didn’t lie? He left her alone?

It’s like they were both aware that he was sharing and there was an expectation there. Where she would say she wanted to be left alone but he wouldn’t do it anyway, and she would keep paying attention anyway. That they were gonna play the “follow you around” intimacy game. Except Kai is like, woops jokes on you I can get out and I’m not taking you with me. Even though it was a given that I was gonna try to win you over, for fun. I know the hell I just condemned you to, enjoy.

Post Kai getting emotions (sort of)

And this reading gives an entirely new light to their first interactions post Kai getting emotions and how furious she is that he is trying to get her attention. Because fuck off, I gave you my attention and you left me. We’re not doing that again. You get nothing from me.

And also why he can’t stop thinking about her. Let’s be honest, the “I want to be forgiven” is bullshit. It’s far more, “I’m a new me and I want to be seen.” And Bonnie just refuses to. Not this time. I will not understand Kai as more than a monster. He doesn’t deserve that from me.

Kai asks her to spend the afternoon with her and she says no. Fuck you. You don’t get me to willingly walk into your house again. Fuck off.

It’s just so weird and personal especially to Bonnie. Like this is where I think they were getting Bonkai wrong. Kai is always shown as so unbelievably obsessed with her, but he doesn’t really think about her until she gets back. And it’s with the same weird determination that Kai gets about all goals.

It’s Bonnie who is so out of character. Despite all the stuff she’s been through and abuse she’s suffered, it’s Kai somehow that changes her. And makes her more emotional. Bonnie is the one that is weirdly touchy about it all and structures her life around (not) seeing him. Bonnie is the one that’s unreasonable about her reactions to him.

And it was so fun seeing a female character, especially the “saviour” female character, be so concerningly “enemies to lovers” obsessive over a guy, and the guy being so oblivious to it. Like it’s funny seeing all of Bonnie’s friends go “maybe you should chill out about Kai” and her just go “NO.” Meanwhile Kai’s just over here like “so Bonnie can see through everyone including me, so if I can convince her there’s a new me, that’s confirmation that I’ve changed 😊 Ah she’s so pretty I wish she’d stop trying to kill me. But Bonnie’s just like that I guess.” But she’s not. She’s not like that at all!!

I wish they’d explored it more but at the same time, if Julie Plec was gonna fuck it up then I’m okay with them going the villain route.

[stelenasfav]

just got to season 4 of my tvd rewatch. i hate damon and his stupid sirebond. forever a damon and delena hater

[cancerian-woman]

I know people say Elena leaving was the reason why the vampire diaries went downhill do you agree or disagree with that what's your opinion ?

If anything, I will say the last two seasons suffered from the plot not letting Elena go and giving too much focus on her coffin situation. Nina had left for a reason, allow Elena to not be so focused on the character's motives. Why is Damon worried about disappointing Elena? She's in a coffin, sleep, let her be lmao. Why does Bonnie have to constantly live in regret in some moments that she's still alive? They could've created some really nice core four moments between Steroline/Bamon honestly. Let the Salvatore's grow without Elena. Let Baroline exist and flourish. Give us the friendship moments! Make Bamon canon maybe? Belvafore could’ve outsold. Edit: Kai could’ve stayed on, taking him out in s6 was a total waste. I’m sorry keeping Enzo… no lol.

I personally don't think Nina leaving is the reason for the show going downhill the way that it did. The show suffered from the writer's playing favoritism and creating certain plotlines that were so heavily centered on those characters. Ngl, there's plenty of moments where the show feels like it's the Damon show and sometimes it’s Caroline's show(post s6..).

To end this off the reason why I don't blame Elena is simply because in season 6, Elena really lacked a purpose in that season. Bamon/Bonkai OWNED that season. Elena didn't really have a memorable moment to me and a main character should never feel that way but she did. They didn't have anything for her to do besides be Damon's GF. Though despite the messy plotlines TVD has way more reply value than TO does for me even when theirs certain plotlines that’s irritating as fuck lmao.

[bennett-mikealson]

TDV Stans will state all the reasons why Bonnie was guarded around vampires in the early seasons, yet still say she was a weirdo, or a bitch for acting the way she did.

Them: "you know I get it, her grams died and vampires have done nothing but cause her trauma and despite being a 16/17 year old witch who’s been thrown into the supernatural world having to protect everyone whether she was forced to or not that still didn’t give her the right to be distant to Elena, the Salvatore's and act like a bitch to everyone".

Like UM HELLO grams just died. Excuse Bonnie TF out of her for not being in a cheerful kind of mood.

They sound like Caroline when she said Elena used to be fun before her parents died when they say stuff like that. make it make sense. 

[wearesociety]

one of klaus’ redeeming quality was how much he hated damon. he was always on that man’s neck. he treated him like the dirt on his shoes and i had to stan just because of that!!!!! like the amount of times damon would offer himself in place of stefan to be his ripper buddy and klaus would be so disgusted. it reminds me of how bonnie hated him in the earlier season. no one has ever hated damon like klaus and bonnie have. we had to stan the smartest tvd characters.

[rhcenyra]

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES ⇢ 2x01 | THE RETURN

[hyperactivewhore]

I honestly don't understand people who claim to hate Julie Plec but then bring her into everything to prove their arguments correct.

This is the same woman who bullied and treated Kat Graham like hell solely for being black, who is constantly promoting abuse and rape without acknowledging it, a woman who lies through her teeth and continously berates people who aren't white just because she can (who made her main black character stay in Africa completely alone, by the way, while everyone else had love interests or children). This fandom is all about acting like she doesn't exist and hating her (rightfully so) until it comes to their ships.

Why are you acting like the word of a racist should matter? Stop bringing up her corny twitter quotes to defend your abusive ship, because it's embarrassing to see.

[fearlessfairy]

Making Damon finally say "I love you" to Bonnie and adding "the same way Elena loved you" is one of the biggest betrayals and spit in the face in tv history.

[kg-day]

Pro-Damon arguments have always been pretty stupid imo, but an argument I've been seeing a lot more of recently is people saying that they prefer Damon to Stefan- both as a character and as a love interest for Elena- because "Damon was aware that he was a monster whereas Stefan pretended that he wasn't", and I have got to say, this is such a brain dead take.

Let's start by addressing the first part of the claim, that Damon's self-awareness inherently makes him better. No. Believe it or not, being self-aware does not make you a good person, it's what you do with that awareness that does. What does Damon do with his self-awareness? Absolutely nothing. He whines and cries about how much of a monster he is and how he can't change whenever anyone tries to hold him accountable for anything, or he just puts the blame on Katherine or his mother because "they didn't wuv him 🥺👉🏻👈🏻". So, he recognizes that he's a bad person, but then he proceeds to continue to be a bad person anyway...I'm not seeing how this is a good- or even a respectable- thing. Damon also doesn't care! He enjoys murdering and r*ping people. How does someone knowing they're a bad person, and then doing nothing to be better, make them a better person? It doesn't. The logic of that argument is non-existent. And to then go on and say that this is why Elena should choose him?? Why? How does Elena begging Damon to just stop being horrible, and then him responding with "I'm a monster, I'll never change" scream "I'm someone you should be with"?? There's a reason she told him he was the worst choice she would ever make.

Now, for the second part of the claim, which states that Stefan pretends that he is a good person when really, he's a monster. Once again: no. Tell me you don't have general comprehension skills without telling me because Stefan's desperation to hold onto his humanity and morality are very central parts of his character. He recognizes that he's done horrible things and takes full accountability for them. Whenever Elena asks him a question about his past, he's honest with her. He doesn't hide things from her, downplay them, or push the blame onto someone else (and if someone tries to bring up him not initially telling her he was a vampire, I will scream. Because duh! Why would he just be like, "Hey, I'm Stefan, I'm a vampire, nice to meet you!"? Please be serious) He's said the words "I am/was a monster" multiple times on screen - same as Damon - the difference between the two of them is that Stefan does something about it. Stefan trying to be a better person is not him pretending he's never done bad things. It's him trying to atone for all of the bad things that he has done. So, when he says that he's not Damon, It's true! Because he does everything Damon doesn't do when it comes to facing the consequences of his actions. Which also winds up forcing him to face the consequences of Damon's actions as well!

Only in the TVD fandom will you see people say that the guy who actively does the wrong thing in every scenario and who revels in being the bad guy is better than the guy who hates the part of himself that does horrible things and puts all of his effort into being a better person simply because guy #1 is "self-aware".

I hate it here.

[chloesreality]

part 2 of “uhh yeahh I’m gonna need you to marry me rn”

[blairwaldcrf]

inspired by (and for): @nikkiruncks